Rob Porter, former White House staff secretary who resigned following allegations of domestic abuse, said the new book from veteran reporter Bob Woodward is “selective and misleading” in the way it describes the Trump administration.
“Having now read Bob Woodward’s Fear, I am struck by the selective and misleading portrait it paints of the president and his administration,” Porter said in a statement, according to Axios.
Porter, who left his post at the White House in February, offered glowing praise for Trump and rejected one claim in the book that materials were “stolen” off the president’s desk.
A summary of the tell-all published by the Washington Post last week detailed how Gary Cohn, then Trump’s chief economic adviser, took a letter off Trump’s desk that the president was supposed to sign. The document would formally pull the United States out of a trade agreement with South Korea.
According to Woodward’s book, Cohn later said he took the letter from Trump’s desk in an effort to protect national security.
[Related: Trump pissed at Gary Cohn, Rob Porter for their roles in Bob Woodward’s book: Report]
In another instance involving a letter Porter drafted withdrawing the U.S. from NAFTA, Cohn reportedly told the former staff secretary he would take the draft notification letter off Trump’s desk.
“The suggestion that materials were ‘stolen’ from the president’s desk to prevent his signature misunderstands how the White House document review process works — and has worked for at least the last eight administrations,” Porter said.
Porter praised Trump by saying he invites “robust discussion and asks probing questions.”
“He has the confidence to allow advisers to disagree with a proposed course of action and advocate for an alternative outcome — and I sometimes did just that,” he said in his statement. “But in the end, President Trump is the one who decides, and he has shown himself more than capable of doing so.”
“During my time in the White House, I sought to serve the president’s best interests and to help enable his many successes — successes that Mr. Woodward’s book ignores,” Porter said.
Porter is the latest Trump administration official to push back on Woodward’s book, joining Cohn, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, and others. Woodward has said he stands by his reporting.
Porter left the White House after two of his ex-wives said he abused them. He has denied the allegations.
